Members of the Chicago Westside Branch NAACP held a rally Saturday at the site where an 18-year-old member of the organization was killed, calling for “Justice for Jailyn,” organizers said, and urging the gas station owner to implement more safety measures.

According to the Oak Park Police Department, officers responded around 1:52 a.m. June 22 to the BP gas station at 100 Chicago Ave. on a call of shots fired. They found a woman unresponsive in a parking lot there.

The teen, identified as Jailyn Logan-Bledoe, had been shot to death and robbed, and the vehicle she was driving stolen. Police said a witness reported seeing two males approach her from behind and fire one shot.

School officials and those close to her said Logan-Bledsoe had been a class of 2022 student at Oak Park-River Forest High School and a social justice advocate – at school and in the community.

She had been a longtime member of the Westside NAACP branch.

Saturday, chapter President Karl Brinson was flanked by Village President Vicki Scaman, Chicago Alderman Emma Mitts (37th Ward), and a contingent of members and other community supporters, as he poignantly asked the gas station management to make safety changes as part of efforts to deter and combat crime at the 24-hour gas station.

“What are you going to do, for safety and security, as a business owner, to make sure that [a shooting] does not happen here again?” Brinson asked. “What is your plan?”

Brinson said that the gas station needed, among other security measures, better cameras on the outside of the station, as well as enhanced signage alerting patrons they were under video surveillance.

When calls from the crowd came for the gas station to consider not staying open for 24 hours, Harry Singh, who said he is the gas station manager, first offered his condolences to Logan-Bledoe’s family and supporters.

“This was a senseless killing. I have a kid too. I wouldn’t want to see my kid die like this,” he said.

Harry Singh, right, manager of the BP gas station at 100 Chicago Ave. in Oak Park, responds June 25, 2022 to members of the Chicago Westside Branch NAACP who held a rally there following the shooting death of Jailyn Logan-Bledsoe, 18, at the gas station days before. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

Then, he told the NAACP crowd that something like not staying open around the clock should apply across the board and not just to his store. He said he could support that, though, if it were a village ordinance.

“I’m ready to work with them,” he said about residents’ calls for his and other gas stations having a closing time.

While Singh said he was already considering putting some additional, better quality cameras up around the station, but it wasn’t until someone in the crowd Saturday mentioned it that he saw the need for cameras at the pump.

“We will do that,” he said.

Members of the Chicago Westside Branch NAACP held a "Justice for Jailyn" rally June 25, 2022 at BP gas station, 100 Chicago Ave. in Oak Park, Jailyn Logan-Bledsoe was shot to death at the gas station days before. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

Tempers flared at times as Brinson and others asked Singh if and how he would help bring more safety measures to the gas station, which is located about two blocks from the village’s border with the Austin neighborhood of Chicago.

But the tensions were dialed back as the group formed a circle outside the gas station, and Singh and Scaman held members’ hands as the Rev. Walter Jones offered a prayer.

“We lift up the family right now … knowing that this is a storm that they are going through,” Jones said. “We’re leaning right now for some revelation. We’re leaning right now for some understanding … that information will be released.”

Police officials would not offer an update on the investigation in this case and, as of late Tuesday afternoon, no arrests had been announced. No representatives from the police department attended the demonstration Saturday.

However, Scaman told Pioneer Press that police are doing “absolutely everything that they can to solve this. I spoke to our [police] chief … and she has barely slept since this incident happened.”

Scaman said local law enforcement has been reaching out to all available resources to help solve this case, including the West Suburban Major Crimes Task Force.

Singh said he was not working at the time of the shooting. He said he and other store workers are cooperating with the police investigation and have turned over surveillance cameras to law enforcement.

The gas station manager said while the quality of the cameras around the outside perimeter of the store is not the best, in recent years the ones inside the store have been upgraded. He explained that the quality of those inside cameras provides a clear image of Logan-Bledsoe in the store, as well as of the two believed to have shot her.

Singh called Logan-Bledsoe a “familiar face” at the store. According to him, the teen had parked at a pump – though she did not buy gas – and entered the store early that Wednesday morning. He said the cameras inside the store show her making a purchase, with the two other males in the store with her at the same time. Singh said she exited and they followed behind her.

He said the perpetrators shot Logan-Bledsoe then stole her vehicle.

Brinson called Logan-Bledsoe a “very active youth…a young organizer. She was a very strong young activist coming up to be concerned and energized, and involved in her community and civil rights,” he said. “She was raised to be involved.”

Protesters stop motorists from patronizing the BP gas station. Images from a Justice for Jailyn rally at the BP gas station in Oak Park at 100 Chicago Ave. on June 25, 2022. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

The teen’s grandmother is vice president of that local NAACP chapter. She and the rest of the family are distraught over the loss of Logan-Blesoe, Brinson said. The family has not commented publicly and could not be reached by Pioneer Press.

We lost a “conscious young Black sister,” Brinson said.

He called for the shooters to be brought to justice.

Scaman said calls for making gas stations and other crime-prone places around the village safer – including possibly closing earlier – would be considered “with all levels of seriousness.” But, she said, “we do not want to jump to that place without understanding the equity … for each business and how it would affect them.”

She said such a discussion would come “at a very immediate” Village Board meeting. Scaman said a group of residents and organizations like the Westside Branch NAACP would be brought together to, in the case of this shooting, work together with the owner to “look at all options” for assessing current security and implementing additional needs.

“The security, the signage, the hours, all aspects of the business” would need to be evaluated, she said. She added that bigger businesses also bear some responsibility.

“These situations do not get solved by one of us alone. It is not all on the owner of this business, it is not all on local residents, it’s not all on government. We all have a part to play,” Scaman told Pioneer Press.

Singh said he was “appreciative” of the local NAACP coming out and expressing their views.

“We’ve been in the community for 12 years and we’d like to stay here longer,” Singh said. “We can only do that if we work with the community.”

But one man at the demonstration rejected Singh’s community buy-in.

“You’re not supporting us, not if people are getting killed” here, he said.